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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  May 13, 2013 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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for a body in motion. if you've got the irs operating in anything less than a neutral and nonpartisan way, then that is outrageous, it is contrary ri to our traditions and people have to be held accountable and it's got to be fixed. >> president insisted those responsible will be held accountable as you heard. senate democrats including majority leader reid are now joining republicans in expressing outrage and the retiring chairman of the senate finance committee says his committee will investigate this quote outrageous abuse of power. on syria, the president and
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prime minister have condemned the violence. >> we'll continue work to establish the facts around the use of chemical weapons in syria. >> syria's history is being written in the blood of her people and it is happening on our watch. there is no more urgent international task than this. >> we'll talk about the tonal differences between cameron and obama. and the whole issue of this, of talking points frankly throughout this process, has been a side show. suddenly three days ago, this gets spun up as if there's something new to the story. there's no "there" there. >> "saturday night live" decided to do a version of the benghazi hearings. testimony if an unlikely whistleblower.
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>> when were you first made aware that our consulate was under attack? >> i guess this morning. >> i see. >> is it still going on? >> no. no, it happened last september. but -- >> who do you think did it? >> well we know who did it. it wassance ar al sharia. >> well, if you know who did it, then why are you holding these hearings? >> good day, i'm chuck todd, live in washington. and in today for andrea mitchell. president obama in a joint news conference with david cameron makes it known that the benghazi probe is nothing but filled with political motivations. >> who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down, for three days?
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so the whole thing defies logic and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly has a lot to do with political motivations we've had folks who have challenged hillary clinton's integrity, susan rice's integrity. mike mullen and tom pickering's integrity. it's a given that mine gets challenged by these same folks. >> joining me now for the daily fix, chris cillizza, msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics.com and senior editor and kelly o'donnell. it was a defiant president obama today, let's see he used political circus, sideshow, and no "there" there. if there was any doubt about how the president feels about the benghazi probe coming from capitol hill, i think we now know. >> no question. chuck, contrast that to how he approached the irs story, the question was a two-parter, actually a three-parter.
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on the irs, these actions are outrageous, i will not tolerate it. on benghazi, clearly he, this is a digging in. this is, he does not think, he does see this as purely political by republicans. he does not, there was no apology for some of the discrepancy in the talking points, he dismissed as you used the words, he dismissed the focus on the talking points as a sideshow. emotional, i don't want to say angry. but clearly perturbed that he was still talking about this, being asked about it real contrast to how he approached the irs, i would say frankly the irs is more understandable and therefore more dangerous to the obama administration. i think at least at this point than benghazi. >> the tone thing caught me. i want to go to the irs, a minute. kelly, you've been doing a lot of reporting on this the president said he first learned about it friday. that is an, i've been asking people, members of the administration, so you've not seen any of this report, you don't know anything about this? they say no. so clearly this has been on a
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different track. congress seems to know, inspector general at the treasury department seems to know before the white house did. >> we expect a big report from the treasury department's inspector general that will lay out more. we have been able to obtain a partial draft of that report which lays out a timeline and helps us to understand how this was going on. i think there is a one connection with benghazi and the irs story. it has to do with telling the truth to congress at hearings. we saw that the then irs direct hr spoken to congress after there had been complaints from tea party groups feeling that they had been targeted when applying for tax-exempt status that set off a flurry of the typical kind of oversight congress does. sending letters, asking for information. when the director appeared before the committee, said there had been no targeting when now we're learning through the reporting that almost a year prior to that, senior members of the irs knew that it had in fact gone on. what was done was in looking for how to process those applications for the tax-exempt
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status. there were those in the irs who determined it was easy to shorthand it by looking for groups that had names including tea party, 9-12, we the people, the sort of monikers that were associated with the conservative movement. but not with any liberal groups. by doing that, this went over almost a three-year period now up to the present day. and there was a lot of moments along the way when someone could have intervened. and in fact 24r were steps taken when the internally the irs said that's not the right criteria, changes that. regardless of party, regardless of who who's in charge, administration expects when anyone related to the administration testifies, they get it right. the anger over not telling congress the truth. >> a couple of points to remind people of. there's a lot of people wondering why didn't the president call for the head of the irs, the irs commissioner to step down there is no commissioner of the irs.
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commissioner shulman stepped down in november 2012. there's an acting commissioner. the post is vacant. jonathan martin it brings me to you. the president was going to be getting questions both on benghazi and on the irs. did he do anything to sort of tamp down this feeling that crept over the white house over the weekend that they were losing control a little bit of at least the washington nature i have been for whatever that's worth? >> i think he probably did what he is going to have to do. this is the only the start of what he's going to have to do on the iris story. he began a process of expressing rhetorical outrage. i think you're going to see action follow this week. chuck, you mentioned there to the surprise of some members of congress calling for his resignation of the head of the irs. there is no head of the irs currently. that won't stop members of congress from calling on the resignation. but i do think you'll see at least some mid-level heads roll this week from the irs. there's no question given how
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washington works, that president obama is going to have to at least find somebody in that organization to take a fall. and i'd be shocked if that didn't happen between now and friday. >> and you know, chris cillizza, one of the most important sort of spokesmen for the obama administration in the first three and a half years.
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during the firefight, if you will between the extremists and those at the compound. >> you know to your point, chuck, two things, one, this is someone in robert gates who has significant sort of bipartisan connection. it's also not me or you saying this. this is the former defense secretary saying it. this is someone with real heft who says look, had i been there, i wouldn't have done this. you're going to hear more things like that. again, you know, people say, well, washington can walk and chew gum. republicans can focus on benghazi and on the irs. yes and no, i tend to think politically speaking, the irs is so much more fertile as an issue. people understand it better.
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there seems to be -- wrongdoing that's sort of provable. they said they didn't know about it, they did know about it will. i would be stunned if republicans didn't spend a lot more time on the irs than benghazi in the coming weeks, but i've been stunned many times before. >> mitch mcconnell would like to see irs hearings take place before benghazi hearings. >> he would be happy to have them take place in louisville. it's great for folks like mitch mcconnell and lindsay graham and chuck you pointed it out this morning in "first read." if you're a republican running for election, and you have some suspicion by the tea party this is great way for you to win easy credibility. with folks on the right. but by really coming out hard against the irs. there is no down side whatsoever and given the evidence, it justifies it. >> kelly, quickly, tom pickering, mike mullen. will they get subpoenaed on
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capitol hill? >> letters are going out. we saw from tom pickering, a willingness to appear. >> he argued he was willing to appear before. >> he said he was willing it appear the first time. >> he has said publicly, he was not particularly looking forward to appearing and didn't want to participate if it was too political. he said over the weekend that he would appear and letters are going out today asking him to appear. and so we expect that to be coming very soon and for dats and republicans, there's bipartisanship. >> i got to wrap it up here. in the words of ron fournier, welcome back to the '90s, that's what the weekend felt like. thank you. ♪ o'er the land of the free ♪ and the home of the brave
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>> so if you look carefully, that, that woman there sporting some really cool shades? that's andrea mitchell, she was sharing the stage at her alma mater, the university of pennsylvania, where vice president joe biden is today's commencement speaker. the vice president told the graduates they were entering at a pivotal moment in american history. >> no graduating class gets to choose the world into which they graduate. every graduating class faces unique challenges. every class enters a history that up to this point has been written for you. but few, few enter at a point where they genuinely have a chance to write a new chapter, to bend history just a little bit. i would suggest your class has
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to strengthen the moderate opposition and to prepare for a democratic syria without bashar al assad. >> today the president repeated his call for syria without assad but he and prime minister cameron appeared to differ on the means to the end. angus king joins me now. senator king does a caucus with the democrats but is an independent from maine. senator king, i was sitting there listening to both prime minister cameron and to the
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president. it was clear prime minister cameron is much more i guess hawkish, if you will, wanting to go in sooner. when he talked about syria. he led with two important numbers, 80,000 killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. talking about the refugee situation. prime minister cameron seems to be leaning forward, if you will more than the president. is that appropriate? should the president be leaning as far forward as prime minister cameron is? >> i don't think so. i think the president is taking the right, prudent position. i know in the last segment you talked about the extraordinary interview on "face the nation" with robert gates. he also had a lengthy discussion on syria. i can tell you on being the armed services and intelligence, there were no good options in syria. it is a very complex situation. it makes iraq look simple. it's a civil war within a civil war.
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if we start arming people, we play arm people who are going to use those arms against us. you've got the problem of chemical weapons scattered all over the country. it's a very complex situation. i think we have to have a clear assessment number one of the intelligence, we know about going into wars in the middle east on incorrect or incomplete intelligence. we need to really know what's going on. number two. we need to know what our mission is and number three, we need to know how to get out. and my concern is you start with a no-fly zone. you end up bombing anti-aircraft facilities and you end up in a war. >> what should our mission be? >> our mission is to try to bring to bear whatever international pressure we can. and the key to breakthrough may have been earlier this week when john kerry had the lengthy meeting in moscow. and the russians are no ready to sponsor an international conference.
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that would be the best solution. the russians are very important player here, and that could turn out to be the only piece of good news about syria that i've heard in the last couple of months. >> when does this humanitarian crisis call for u.s. action? >> well that's a really good question. and robert gates asked that question. i mean there are humanitarian crises that occur on a fairly regular basis around the world. and the question is, what is our responsibility? now we are giving, i think something like half a billion dollars in humanitarian aid for the refugees and the people that are flowing out of syria. by again, the question is, when do we decide that we have to jump in and intervene in a civil war? these are decisions that have to be made in a case-by-case basis. it worked in bosnibosnia, would work in syria or make it worse?
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right now the intelligence and what i've seen to me indicates it would be a mistake to try to jump in. it could make it worse. once assad goes. then there's a whole new set of problems, because the opposition changes from al qaeda and al nusra which are jihadist. to more democratic groups, there's going to be another civil war. it's a very complex situation. and i'm not saying we should never go in. but right now, i think the president by being sort of cautious on this, is making the right call. >> do you have any unanswered questions about the benghazi attack? >> well, i think the only unanswered, well there are a couple. the one is, could they have gotten that group of people there that would have been able to help? what i've heard is probably not. and there were also concerns about moving people out of tripoli. part of the context that's been
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forgotten. there were over 30 protests going on around the world during this week involving this andty, perceived to be anti-muslim video. five of them involved attacks on diplomatic missions, there was a lot going on that week. whether we could have gotten military people there in time, all the testimony i've seen at the various hearings is the answer is no. the question now is was there some kind of cover-up? i think we all the to have a look at the documents, i don't know why the white house shouldn't just make them available generally. the emails that went back and forth about the famous talking points. then we can get to the bottom of whether there was some effort to cover things up. >> it sounds like so you've seen them. you've seen the emails? >> i have. >> so do you think -- >> do you think there was an attempt to cover up? >> i spent a couple of hours in a closed intelligence committee meeting reading through the emails with other members of the committee and concluded at the
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end, i didn't see anything that looked like a smoking gun in terms of things being covered up. it looks like it was talking points written by a committee. which almost by definition is never a very good process. but i understand about executive privilege. i'm a former governor. on the other hand this is going to nag the administration. i think they ought to just release this information. and let the congress look them over and let the public decide. my conclusion was, that it looked to me i would second-guess some of the decisions but i didn't see anything that looked like a political cover-up. >> angus king. the senator from maine thanks for coming on. new developments in the case against ariel castro as his brothers speak out for the first time. the day my doctor told me i had diabetes,
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dramatic police raid that freed three women. showing police storming the home owned by ariel castro last week. inside they found gina dejesus and michelle knight who reported will i jumped in their arms. meanwhile, ariel castro's brothers are speaking out for the first time, telling cnn they had nothing to do with the alleged crime and they say they don't want anything more to do with their brother. >> absolutely not. no idea that this horrific crime was going on. >> i'm telling you something, i had nothing to do with this and i don't know how my brother got away with it for so many years. because -- that would never cross my mind. >> monster, a hateful, i hope he rots in that jail. i don't even want them to take his life like that i want him to suffer in that jail. >> nbc's ron allen is in cleveland. ron, we're learning more about some police reports detailing a much more violent past about
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ariel castro. what can you tell us, it looks like cleveland is emptying the files on everything they know about ariel castro over the last decade. >> exactly. and it's a very violent past. that starts back in the '80s, it involves charges of domestic violence that we knew about. they're chronicled in more detail. you're right, the police are purging the file. getting all this out in the public. done behind me you can see the house of horrors as it's been called. the to tur chambers prosecutors call it. it's boarded up, surrounded by a 12-foot high fence to preserve it as crime scene and to protect it from vandals. there are local official who is say there have been credible threats that people want to burn this place down and get it out of here. remove it as quickly as possible because it's such a terrible thing, frankly. also, we've heard from the three survivors, the three women and child who survived this terrible ordeal. over the weekend, they released a statement through a team of attorneys who are now representing them. basically saying and expressing
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their thanks and gratitude to the police and the community. to the media for following in their cases for the past ten years, for all the support that's pouring in now. they also directed people to make contributions to something called the cleveland courage fund. which is a best place to channel donations. a lot of support in this community. a lot of concern and those women said most of all what they need now is privacy. chuck? >> one thing that we seem to be is that michelle knight is not reuniting with her family. but she's staying still with gina dejesus' family, correct? >> we don't know a lot about michelle knight's circumstance. she was estranged from her family before this happened and is now still estranged from her family. we believe she's probably in the care of some social service agencies, some faith, members of the faith community perhaps. yes, she does not have family that we know of. unlike the other two women who were released to a huge reunions with their families, joyful occasions, michelle knight's circumstance is a little bit different. that's why there's a lot of concern in this community for her.
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there was a rally over the weekend for her to make sure that the people in this community don't forget her. her case was never a big, huge issue here like the case of the other two women when they went missing some ten years ago. >> ron allen in cleveland for us, ron, thanks very much. on a much lighter note when space station commander tim hatfield returns to earth later today may have already have his next gig lined up. he's been on the space station four months, time to put together the first music video made in space. it's fast becoming an internet sensation, here's a glimpse of hatfield performing david bowie's "space odyssey." ♪ and before too long ♪ i know it's time to go ♪ our commander comes down
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if in fact irs personnel engaged in the kind of practices
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that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it. and you know, they have to be held fully accountable. >> well, no break yet for president obama. as the latest controversy this time with the irs weighs down the start of the second term. more partisan warfare. joining me, ron fournier, a veteran covering second terms, including bill clinton's and michael gershin. ron, let me start with you and the president and how he handled the irs and benghazi. today. your assessment. >> the irs i thought he was very firm and clear as he had to be. condemning this and saying we'll get to the bottom of it.
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and we'll hold people accountable. he did not go into the misstatements we've had on that issue over the past few months. the irs had said this was not happening when it was. but he did draw a clear line. his real passion, though, came with benghazi. you could see this was a bill clinton, 1990s style dig in the heels, call the folks criticizing him. pure politics. in this case republicans are at risk of overreaching. and again, not addressing some of the credibility issues that lay beneath us. >> michael gerson. it did seem he was almost daring republicans, go ahead, come at me on benghazi. throwing down the gauntlet. we just had the story in politico about speaker boehner saying he's obsessed about the benghazi story. almost as if that was what was underlying the president's response there. are the republicans going to back down shall. >> i don't think so. he was forceful on this issue,
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but i don't think his narrative works, which is there's nothing new here. we just went through a week where we find out from whistleblowers where we found out that the people on the ground, in benghazi, had no issues, they went up the chain of command. the talking points changed in the way that made it much more inaccurate over time. we even had hints that david petraeus was not happy with the way that the talking points came out. this is pretty new stuff. for the president just to come out and say nothing to see here, move along was not a particularly effective strategy. >> you get to the point in a second term where the opposition party can feel empowered. republicans feel empowered to keep going after clinton. in some ways they were tougher on him in the first term and went ahead and said, forget it we'll try this impeachment thing and see where it takes us. democrats with president bush, got more empowered as the second
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term went on. you get a sense that republicans in washington feel that they're empowered. >> do they do the masters of disaster would take all the information and dump it out and try to swamp the media and the public with all the facts, get the bad news out as soon as they could. or do they do what george bush did, which is to say there's nothing to see here, you know, dissembling on iraq, dissembling on katrina, being clearly out of touch and look what it did to president bush's second term. the credibility issue kills presidents on the second term. >> it seems that republicans are falling all over themselves to get in front of the irs story. easy politics, easy political hit. do you sense there will be some. i saw mitch mcconnell, his note was ohm about the irs. house republicans seem a little more interested in benghazi. almost as if there's a split among congressional republicans. where do you go after the president? >> i think it's easy to overplay the benghazi issue.
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when you dig down, we're not talking about criminality. we're talking about negligence and incompetence. >> this is not watergate. >> which seems to be what the president was most annoyed about. the three-day cover-up. >> but in fact, it's not nothing that you undermine your own credibility. that there are serious issues at fairly high levels in the state department and the white house here. so i don't think he has no risk. but i think you have to recall that the president's agenda was pretty much in trouble before these two things. when it came to overselling the sequester, his arguments on the sequester, with not -- unable to get even a modest gun control measure through. this now can only complicate matters. that can turn around, with a victory on the budget or a victory on immigration. but right now, the trajectory is pretty bad. >> the republicans defeated president clinton's second-term priorities, but they lost politically. >> right. right. and in part because the president clinton showed every day i'm going to get up as he
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kept repeating and i'm going to be working for you folks despite this controversy and on everything other, even on the lewinsky stuff, they would try to get all the information out and try to get ahead of the bad news. i do think the president was trying to bait the republicans. >> felt like bait a little bit. >> the huge risks for republicans. they have huge demographic problems. >> blue collar voters in the last election was a big problem. if you're just addressing these kind of issues you're not out there every day addressing those problems, that could be a problem for republicans. >> michael gerson, ron fournier, two veterans of this. thank you very much. up next, a path to citizenship, equal treatment for same-sex partners? and reuniting children of undocumented immigrants with their families, those are among the thorny issues when the senate is expected to get back to work. joining me is janet mergea, the
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president of the national council on la raza. are you worried about either of these issues being a poison pill. particularly the one on same-sex couples. which could break up the so-called gang of eight? >> you know right now, i think we have time to see how this is still going to play out. and i wouldn't necessarily say any one amendment can take this bill down. although i know that has been commented on. i think for us, we want to just see the process continue to move forward. and make an assessment at the end of that process. at the end of the day. as to what provisions could actually undermine the bill. >> is there any parts of the criticism of this gang of eight proposal that's been coming, particularly from people like chuck grassley, jeff sessions and some others, who, their criticism thaw think the gang of eight could do a better job answering, that they're not answering very well? that you think that they should
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be doing a better job with? >> actually, think the gang of eight has to be an exceptional job. and have weighed in when they need to. and have discredited, amendments when they need to be discredited. and have i think messaged appropriately when there is a lot of bad information going on out around what some of the impact of these amendments would be. so i think they've worked very in a very unified way. and have recognized that there is some effort to protect the core of their agreement. while at the same time it's been very impressive to see the process be so open and transparent. you know, 31 amendments were offered last week. 21 were accepted and most in a bipartisan way. so i feel like they have really hit the right balance. between protecting the core of the bill and yet, keeping the process moving forward with a very credible sense of openness. >> well, there are a lot of
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other, hundreds of other amendments, not all of them actually voted on. we should point that out. i want to play for you something from republican rand paul. he is somebody who could be a swing vote, not in terms of getting it passed in the senate. but a swing vote between the supporters of immigration reform getting 70 votes or 75 votes, versus getting only 60 or 65. here's what he said campaigning in iowa. >> i'm also with senator grassley and congressman king on the fact that think we were hoodwinked in '86 and promised security and it never came if they come towards me and they will make more security, there's a chance i could vote for the bill. am i worried a little bit about it? yes. i'm worried i might offend some people. i'm worried whether it works or not. if it doesn't work, the people who vote for it will catch blame for it. >> do you feel like the border security questions that rand paul has are going to be answered enough to get his vote?
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i hope so, he was very clear when he spoke to the u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce, about the need to finally address this issue and to achieve comprehensive immigration reform. when he spoke to a largely hispanic audience, he certainly seemed to lean in and i know that the border security issues are important to him and to a lot of us. we also recognize that a lot has been invested. $18 billion last year alone. more than all federal enforcement agencies combined. i think there will be some recognition to that. and in addition to that, this senate bipartisan legislation includes even up to $7 billion more in enforcement. so i think we will hit that mark and strike the right bag. >> is there anything in this legislation that you feel like missing in order to get it passed in both the house and senate? >> you know, i think they have come very close to striking the right balances in terms of the path to citizenship and all the
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other related elements. of course we care a lot about making sure that that path to citizenship is real. and not unattainable. i think for us we want to make sure there aren't efforts to undermine that. which we believe perhaps would be maybe further efforts when those titles to the bill are considered. i'm encouraged bit fact that the social security administration, in a letter they said that 3.2 billion jobs would be added to this bill. as well as increasing the gdp 1.63% and even stated that the social security trust fund would be bolstered by $300 billion over the next ten years. there's a lot of important reasons why we need to keep immigration reform moving forward and the economic interests are really important. and you believe those numbers are enough push-back to what the heritage foundation put out
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where they said trillions were going to be spent in order to make this bill happen? >> no one has given the heritage foundation report any sense of credibility. it's been disputed mostly by republicans and conservatives. >> grover norquist and former governor haley bay barber have out. and one of the editors of the report had been accused of some fairly controversial thinking that was really quite insulting to many in the hispanic community. around eugenics. i don't think the heritage report is going to see much in the light of day in terms of credibility. >> janet murgula, head of la raza, thanks for coming on. london calling, prince harry is still in the united states. pushing his own charm offensive. but first, some long-awaited
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great news here on the nbc family. a big mazel tov to my friend, savannah guthrie and her new fiancé, michael feldman. she shared the news and showed off her rock this morning on the "today show." >> savannah, you have big news over the weekend? >> yes, i got engaged over the weekend. we've been together four years, so as he said new york city one will accuse us of rushing into anything. >> [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare?
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opposition in the coming year. >> strong words from the british prime minister david cameron on acting to end the bloodshed in syria. keir simmons joins me now from london. how is that going to play in great britain? the idea of another military intervention. prime minister cameron seemed a lot more forward-leaning on this issue than president obama did. standing right next to each other. >> good afternoon. it's rare to see very much difference between washington and london, but you could see some difference where you heard the prime minister urging more strong support for the syrian rebels. i think that will be supported widely in london, because i think the crucial thing that prime minister cameron said is that the history of syria is being written in the blood of its people and it's on our watch. in other words, we've got to do something. the worry in washington is of course if you aid the syrian rebels you also potentially aid
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factions who have declared alignment with al qaeda. the trouble is, if the other path, the twin track of prime minister cameron called it, worked, which is to try get the russians to bring bashar al assad into talks, why would that happen? why would assad come to talks where the aim in the end surely is for him to be where the aim is for him to be deposed and why would the russians support that when they think assad should stay in place. so there are questions there even though as prime minister cameron said he believes john kerry made a big breakthrough with the russians recently. >> of course, prince harry has been over here doing a charm offensive of sorts. he was at the wounded warriors event. he will be visiting areas hit by sandy. he'll be doing that in new york city today. the purpose of this for prince harry is about a goodwill tour with the royal family with the united states. for himself. any ulterior motives we should know about, or care about?
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>> i think it is as simple as that. pretty impressive to see the prime minister with his diplomatic pose and harry there with a charm offensive if you will. in the background there are those memories of the las vegas pictures and harry trying to put that behind him a little bit. and he is doing well. he managed to throw, as you saw, a football pretty well. >> our football. not yours. >> that must be all the rugby training, i think. at one point he threw the football at the press photographers. i don't think that was a mistake, by the way. but he then will meet with governor chris christie and the governor has said that he plans to keep prince harry out of trouble. if he manages to do that, then he might get a call from the palace to ask him how he has managed to pull that off. >> there you go. from our london bureau, thanks very much. we'll be right back. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ind revis
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that will do it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." an dree will be back tomorrow without cap and gown. i'll see you tomorrow for the daily rundown. remember to follow all the shows. first, andrea mitchell since that's the show i'm doing right now. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's next on the news nation. more on president obama's response on benghazi and the developing story involving the irs targeting conservative groups. we'll get reaction from the top oversight committee. plus our first look at o.j. simpson in more than four years. he is back in a las vegas courtroom attempting to get his conviction on kidnapping and robbery overturned. and we will hear from o.j. simpson for the first time this week in court. and defending what many say is the indefensible.
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the accused cleveland kidnapper ariel castro has a new attorney. the question is, is he looking at the insanity defense? it is all coming up next. [ male announcer ] this is betsy. her long day of pick ups and drop offs begins with arthritis pain... and a choice. take up to 6 tylenol in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. all aboard. ♪ a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day
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we join this loving couple. oh dear... geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. s. hi, everyone. i'm tamron hall. a short time ago president obama addressed two pressing issues. the ongoing benghazi back and forth and a new controversy involving the irs. first, there is pressure to explain the upcoming report that shows the tax agency singled out conservative political groups. the irs has apologized on friday. according to the "washington post," of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny, 72 had tea party in their title. 13 had patriot and 11 had 9/12. the irs repeatedly changed the criteria used according to the investigation.
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the search moved to applicants seeking to, quote, make america a better place to live or criticize how the country was being run. there is no indication of any white house involvement and today the president called the details in the reported o outrageo outrageous. >> this is pretty straightforward. if in fact irs personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous. and there is no place for it. and they have to be held fully accountable. >> meanwhile, today, tea party favorite in florida senator marco rubio called for steven miller to step down. he said, quote, it is clear the irs cannot operate with even a shred of the american he's amendment confidence under the current leadership. and it is drawing criticism from